Arizona immigrants: young Latinos ready to 'really release the energy'

Controversial policies have inadvertently energised state's young Latinos, who are getting involved in local government

An undocumented immigrant is processed by deputies working for Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio. About 1,500 people were arrested in Arpaio's sweeps before he ended them late last year. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

For the past decade, Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio has embodied Arizona's high-profile crackdown on undocumented immigrants and, some would say, on Latinos in general. The man who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" has raided communities around and in the state capital, Phoenix, delicately dubbing the operations "crime-suppression sweeps".

Before abruptly halting them at the end of 2011, Arpaio carried out 20 sweeps, arresting 1,500 people.

One of the smallest communities Arpaio raided, and the county's poorest, fought back the hardest, helping to ignite a backlash against anti-immigrant policies that is changing the face of Arizona politics. Guadalupe, a one-square-mile community of 5,500 perched on the edge of southeast Phoenix and 61% Hispanic, was the first to stand up to the sheriff.

As the 2012 presidential election looms, Guadalupe's counter-punch to Arpaio shows just how explosive the power of the Latino community might be throughout the state, particularly in energizing the youth. Just how much this will matter in November remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: the political momentum has radically shifted, and the Latino electorate can feel the wind on its backs.

Battered by Arpaio's sweeps and the nation's harshest series of anti-immigrant legislation for most of the last decade, the state's Hispanic community is now an angry and energized demographic that is mobilizing and fighting back.

In the last four years, Hispanics have elected a growing number of candidates to the Phoenix city council and state legislature. Last November, they recalled the roaring lion of the state's anti-immigrant image, former state senator Russell Pearce. It was a humiliating fall for the leader of the Republicans in the Arizona senate who was the architect behind the nationally polarizing "papers please" law SB1070, and a key supporter of a ballot initiative passed in 2004 that demanded proof of citizenship for public services. Arpaio, too, faces a civil lawsuit in the Arizona courts for alleged racial profiling though a second legal challenge by the US justice department was recently dropped.

On the night of one of his raids in 2008, mayor Rebecca Jimenez met Arpaio face-to-face, surrounded by 250 angry community members as his deputies flooded her town. She handed him a statement from the town's council, telling him not to come back.

"He erupted.0Hhe was so mad that spit flew on my face," Jimenez said. "He told me: 'You don't want us back?' And I said: 'No, we don't want you back.' He said: 'Too bad, I'm coming back tomorrow.' But he didn't."

Guadalupe tried to sever its policing contract with Arpaio but failed.Nevertheless, Arpaio attempted to pull out his deputies, leaving Guadalupe defenseless. In the proceeding year, the town filed a federal lawsuit against the sheriff for canceling services over being criticized. It became an embarrassing battle for him that played out in the media.

Although Guadalupe is small, it illustrates in concentrated form the potential clout of Hispanic politics when the community is mobilised. Few think Latinos will tip this November's vote in Obama's favor in Arizona, but the Hispanic population is certain to climb its from current 30%. Hispanic youth, who make up 43% of all K-12 students in the state, will come of voting age, and some political observers predict that the effects of SB1070, which was recently upheld in part by the US supreme court, will serve to further accelerate Latino political engagement.

"Within 10 to 15 years, we could be a state like New Mexico, or more likely, California," said Arizona State University political science professor Rodolfo Espino, referring to two states with Hispanic populations of 46% and 38% respectively. California is a Democratic fortress, while New Mexico has been decided by a few thousand votes either way in two out of the past three presidential elections.

Arizona Hispanics are expected to represent at least 12% of the electorate or more in the upcoming election. In 2010, Hispanics represented a record 18% of the electorate, according to Antonio Gonzalez of the William C Velasquez Institute.

"Sometimes you have to get kicked in the shins really hard so you feel the pain," said the Democratic congressman for Tucson Raul Grijalva, who called for a boycott of his own state when SB1070 passed.

'The train's already left the station'

Andrew Sanchez was elected to Guadalupe's town council at the age of just 29 in the aftermath of Arpaio's sweep on the town. He remembers at least 50 deputies, some on bikes, others on horses or in helicopters, and the bomb squad.

"When you see a public official at the level of sheriff lying about a small town that he thought had no push and no influence and he could just bash us, and beat us, it hurt," said Sanchez. He takes offence to the sheriff's assumption that many residents of Guadalupe were in the country illegally.

Guadalupe is largely comprised of members of the Yaqui Indian tribe, who, at the turn of the 20th century, fled across the border after a failed uprising just before the Mexican revolution. Today, the town known for its Lent and Easter ceremonies remains beset by alcoholism, domestic violence and all the trappings of "historical trauma", said Yaqui cultural sensitivity specialist Rafael Armenta. Per capita income is just over $11,000, one-third of the statewide average.

It is the Hispanic youth, like Sanchez, who are spearheading the new political push. The demographics are irreversible, Grijalva said. "You can put impediments in front of it, you can make it difficult, but the train's already left the station."

Young Dreamers – undocumented Latino students who could become permanent residents if the Dream Act ever passed – meet late one recent night in Phoenix, crafting strategy on how to get-out-the-vote to their communities.

Daniel Rodriguez, one such Dreamer, had his educational hopes derailed after Proposition 300 passed in 2006. The measure forced him, and all other undocumented students, to pay out-of-state college tuition, which was three times as much, and he lost financial aid.

"What people did inadvertently in taking away our education was really release the energy that immigrant youth have," Rodriguez said.

The group he helped co-found years ago, the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, is raising money to send him back to law school.

The youth first saw the extent of their power in 2008, when a grassroots door-to-door campaign tripled the Hispanic voter turnout in a southwest Phoenix city council district and produced an upset win for Michael Nowakowski. His campaign manager, Ruben Gallego, was elected to the state legislature two years later aged 28.

Three years later, another Nowakowski disciple, Daniel Valenzuela made national headlines when his young volunteers, "Team Awesome," knocked on 72,000 doors to get him on the Phoenix city council. Most recently, Hispanic voters scored their biggest victory yet with the recall of Pearce, the first-ever Arizona legislator removed. It was spearheaded by Citizens For A Better Arizona, an activist group led by Randy Parraz.

"Brother and sisters," Parraz yelled during a mid-June meeting that packed a local sanctuary, "this is happening under our watch! Some of you go back a generation, and have fought these fights, but these fights are not over!"

As the political terrain shifts, one recent poll put Obama only three points behind Romney in Arizona. A late-June poll from Rasmussen by contrast had Romney comfortably ahead by 54 to 41. Romney has yet to open up a field office in Arizona, and party leaders insist the state is not in play.

As for Guadalupe, it must wait to see if the upcoming election ends Arpaio's reign. "Regardless, the culture has been set," Sanchez said.

A couple of months ago, he began sitting in on police training sessions at Maricopa County sheriff's office. "I'm probably the last person you'd expect to see in that class," Sanchez said.

He takes his 19-year-old nephew to the police academy classes there. He says he thinks the young man will "be a great community leader some day".

"We need to take notes and understand this department. That's the best way to help our people," Sanchez says.

Pueblo factbox

(All demographic data comes from the 2010 US census. Voting information comes from state and local elections officials.)